Comfortably Numb
by princesserinla
Summary: Dean reflects on life after Sam's death. Setting is endverse.


Losing Sammy to Lucifer had been unbearable. There were days that Dean was almost sure that he couldn't do it anymore, and he would just slide his finger over the trigger of his gun, safety off, contemplating on how easy the motion would be to pull it.

He started to play a game with himself; if he could still hold the gun steady by the time he saw the bottom of his whiskey bottle (or whatever alcohol he could get ahold of at the time—one couldn't be picky at that point), he'd do it. He'd pull the damn trigger.

Dean never did. Always too far gone by that point, he would tell himself. But in reality he knew that somewhere, floating in the back of his mind, that it wasn't the inebriation that really stopped him. That wasn't what pulled him back to life every night, and woke him up with comforting words in the morning.

It was Cas.

Cas's arms gently lifting him from a chair, or the floor, or a dozen other places that Dean would end up, and leading him to the warmth and safety of his bed.

The angel would kiss his forehead, brush fingers through Dean's hair, and just lie there with him until he woke up the following morning with a splitting headache and a terrible mood to go with it.

Cas never minded. His voice was always surprisingly soft at those moments. Quiet and comforting and loving.

Warm.

And at first Dean, even in his drunken, incoherent state, would brush away Cas's affection—some of it, at least. The lips against his wrist and forehead, the fingers that brushed circles that were too tender and too intimate to mean friendship over his skin…

But after time passed Dean just let it happen. He loved Cas's touch. Even from the very start, though not even a second round in Hell would get him to admit that to anybody. It was warm and comforting and more impassioned than anything Dean had ever felt from a woman.

He would just pretend that it was because he was drunk. He was drunk and he couldn't grasp the gravity of the situation. He was drunk and he thought it was one of the girls.

But even that could only last so long before it started to surface in his sobriety.

It started as just little things; Cas's fingertips brushing against Dean's own when they passed each other.

Dean's eyes lingering longer on Cas as he spoke to the entire group of refugees about search parties and self defense and other things that became sickeningly regular meetings.

But it progressed, and there was a point where Dean stopped caring. Really, he had stopped caring when Sam had died, but there was still that part of him that held up a resistance to Cas for a few months at least.

But it crumbled fast after a particularly difficult night when Cas's lips were just so much more enticing the taste of whiskey on his tongue.

Dean just let it happen after that. What point was there to resist? Sam was dead, and Dean could feel the longing that nearly radiated off of Cas every time they touched. Why not use that?

Why not let Cas love him and touch him and try in vain to raise him once again from torture?

Dean loved Castiel. He loved Cas and while he never said it, he knew it was true. Some days he regretted never voicing it. Cas had deserved to hear it. The old Cas had. Some days he wondered if Cas would have kept it together if Dean had told him. Some days he didn't have to wonder.

There were nights where Dean would wonder what would have become of the two of them if not for all of this…if not for Lucifer, and Sammy, and the inevitable end of the world.

He liked to think, when he had the spare time to daydream, that they would have worked something out. That Dean would have perhaps taken longer to accept it, but he would have after a time. He would have broken down under those beautiful blue eyes and held Cas tight and promised to keep him safe as Cas had always done for him.

Dean doubted that they ever would have lived a normal, domestic life, but it would have been something. It would have meant happiness for the both of them.

This was not that ideal. This was not that fleeting dream.

This was the apocalypse. This was a life without Sammy. This was a life where Dean would never find happiness.

Dean remembered how fast the virus spread.

One day it was one refugee. The next it was ten.

There was a lot of blood that first week.

At least after that their supplies lasted longer.

Fewer bodies to feed meant more food and water for the rest of them.

But the Croats hadn't really shaken Dean. They had almost been expected.

What shook him was that first night since his gradual deterioration of character that he woke up alone. He awoke sick and hung-over and alone and on the floor.

No Cas. No warm bed. No comforting words or fingers through his hair.

He knew what had happened the moment his head had cleared.

Because it had been gradual, really, and he had seen Cas struggling.

Cas struggling to maintain his grasp on the celestial world, on his powers and connection to his family…but it was futile and Dean knew that from the start. He just hadn't _told _Cas. Cas would figure it out. Cas would work through it, because he was _Cas._

Cas was the one who raised Dean to his feet. Cas was the one who held onto _hope_. He held onto _faith_, and the kicker was that it wasn't even faith in his brothers and sisters and father anymore. Not at that point. It was faith in _Dean_.

But every human had a breaking point and Cas hit his the moment he woke up stripped completely of his wings.

Dean remembered that day vividly.

He had thrown up twice that morning since waking—something he rarely did unless he reached what was probably a dangerous level of intoxication. But Cas hadn't been there to pry the bottle from his hand the night before, so he had just kept drinking.

After he eased his headache with an icy shower and a large glass of water, Dean had searched for Cas.

The former-angel wasn't hard to find.

He was in bed—his own bed, which was rarely used those days—curled tight under the threadbare blankets.

"Cas?" Dean had questioned, dragging his heavy feet over to the bed where a bleary-eyed Cas turned to stare up at him. The look in his eyes nearly resembled heartbreak and Dean tried to swallow but his throat was like sand. "What're you doing in bed?"

He knew the answer before Cas responded in a rough, crackling voice, "I'm human."

"Yeah, well…so is everyone else."

That was one of Dean's first regrets. That was a memory that he would go back to on particularly bad nights and wish with every painful ounce of his being that he could change.

Because when Sam was gone and Lucifer began his reign and Dean had sobbed to no one other than Cas that his baby brother was dead and never coming back and Dean was broken hearted, Cas hadn't said, "So is everyone else."

Cas had held Dean and cried quietly with him and didn't want to let go for days.

But that first time that Cas wasn't there to drag Dean's drunken ass back to bed, Dean was _angry._

He refused to comfort.

Cas was his guardian angel. He needed Cas to be that.

Dean could barely function even with that, so how was he supposed to do the same for Cas?

How was he supposed to comfort and warm and soothe when he himself could hardly keep his mind sane through a span of 24 hours?

So no. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't comfort Cas. Cas had to stay strong because Dean didn't know if he could. Cas had to hold Dean's weight.

And for a while after that first day, Cas seemed to take those crude words to heart.

He out of bed. He worked with the rest of them. He held Dean like always, and dragged him to bed when Dean was too drunk to do it himself.

He whispered words of love, and pressed those kisses that Dean always desired all over the Winchester's skin.

But Dean _knew _that it wouldn't last. Cas had been broken since his first day as a human, and for the weeks following he was only holding himself together with scotch tape, and that sort of thing never lasted.

Dean arrived back at camp, long after the sun had set, tired in more ways than one with skin that was almost as bruised and tattered as he felt on the inside. They had scraped up some food and a small straggling of refugees to join the camp, but the town they had searched was infested with Croats and Dean had almost worried that he wouldn't make it back alive that time.

Some of their group hadn't.

Dean hadn't said goodbye to Cas that day, even though he knew the weight that those words carried in those days. Saying goodbye was essential because there was a possibility that it would be your last.

He hadn't even bothered to see Cas before he left.

But coming home his skin felt bare and cold and all he wanted was the relief of Cas's touch.

He didn't even want a drink or sex or any of that. He just felt tired. Drained. Annoyingly clingy. He wanted Cas's arms around his scarred shoulders and warm breath against his neck to remind him that there was still a reason that he didn't pull the trigger at the bottom of each bottle.

Dean knew that something was wrong when they arrived and Cas wasn't there to greet him.

Cas was always waiting with open arms, concern creased onto his forehead when Dean returned.

But this time was different, this time he was absent, and this time Dean knew that Cas wasn't going to be able to pull himself back onto his feet.

Dean had seen the inevitable looming. Every time he looked at Cas the other man seemed only moments from some sort of collapse. It had happened and Dean knew it.

Dean felt irrationally angry when he stepped into Cas's room to see what appeared to be a very drunk Cas and a very worried Chuck trying to lift him into bed.

"Are you drunk?" Dean had asked, hating, even as he spoke, the accusing tone in his words.

Cas mumbled something inaudible. He sounded as though he was going to be sick and Dean left the room.

His bed felt cold and empty that night, more so than it usually did when he slept alone.

That was the second night that Dean regretted. He shouldn't have walked out. He should have said goodbye that day. He should have scooped Cas into his arms as Cas had done for him and held him close and sang Hey Jude until the room stopped spinning and he fell asleep.

That was what Cas _deserved_. He deserved to have every bit of love that he had put out for Dean returned tenfold with kisses and promises and 'I love yous' repeated until the world finally _did _end.

Dean could have fixed it. The thought festered in his mind every day for the next two years as Cas's steady decline steepened with each week.

If he had just picked Cas up like Cas had done for him…if he had just _been there_…Cas would have pulled through.

Dean wouldn't have had to deal with watching Cas's alcoholism grow even worse than his own. He wouldn't have to deal with the first time he watched a girl leave Cas's room in the morning.

He wouldn't have to deal with the sharp twist he felt in his stomach whenever he remembered noticing the bruises that spotted Cas's left arm. There seemed to be more of them every day.

Four years after the death of Sammy and Dean came home from a supply raid unsure if he could even walk.

His legs shook and everything hurt and more than half of the raid party had been lost.

He felt hopeless and amazed that he was even alive. He had almost hoped that he could have fallen with the rest of them but Cas's image had burned bright in his mind and he fought on.

He could have died.

He could have been killed and infected in so many different ways and he never would have come home to see Cas again and to hold him again and he never would have gotten to prove to Cas that he was loved.

The words were begging to leave Dean's lips and he dragged his tired, aching feet through the camp to find Cas's cabin.

"Cas—" The other's name was already on his lips when he stepped into the room where Chuck and two other people were standing around Castiel's bed. The taste of panic was fresh in the air and Cas seemed to be having some sort of muscle spasm.

It was happening so fast and Dean felt his heart stop and his stomach churn.

"What's going on?" He snapped, rushing to Chuck who looked pale and a bit ill.

"H-he overdosed, Dean, I don't know if he's—somebody else is trying to find some insulin—he might not—what if he doesn't—"

Dean couldn't stay in that room. He couldn't look at Cas like that, all shaking limbs and eyes rolled back…

He should have stayed, though. He should have swallowed his discomfort and his fear and his weakness and stayed by Cas's side because that moment might have been his last chance to reconcile.

But he didn't.

He left the room.

He passed a refugee rushing into the cabin with the requested insulin, and Dean considered for a brief moment that maybe it would have just been better for Cas if he didn't come out of it.

He was so numbed by all the drugs and alcohol and the pinpricks in his arms that maybe after the convulsions stopped and muscle spasms ceased and his already shallow breathing stilled he wouldn't have to wake up to an empty bedside.

Because Dean hated himself for it but he knew that when and if Cas woke up that he wasn't going to be there.

He could almost hear Cas's voice in his head waking, staring around an empty room, the small hope that Dean might be there dying before he had a chance to _really _believe that it might be true.

"Hello? Is there anybody in there?"

Dean couldn't remember getting back to his own room, but his bed felt hard and he closed his eyes, imagining a Dean that could be there for Cas.

"I can ease your pain," He would say, kissing every bruise on the man's arm and crease in his face. "Get you on your feet again."

Dean was falling asleep and he welcomed it. He wished that the inevitable prospect of waking didn't loom over his dreams.

"Can you show me where it hurts?"

He lost track at some point whether he was dreaming or daydreaming. It all ran together in a place where Cas was still warm and they could still hold onto each other.

But it wasn't real and when Dean awoke he wouldn't be holding Cas, and when Cas awoke Dean wouldn't be there, and they would both have to shift back into reality.

The dream is gone.


End file.
